


in spite of thunder

by butterflyswimmer



Category: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni | Higurashi When They Cry
Genre: Alternate Canon, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Introspection, Relationship(s), Romance, Short, Spoilers, a world like watanagashi-hen, rika pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 11:58:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10411644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflyswimmer/pseuds/butterflyswimmer
Summary: In some worlds, they dared to touch each other for more than a moment.





	

**Author's Note:**

> there are very fleeting mentions of gore and violence in the work ahead.

By the time the fragments numbered in the hundreds, there were things Rika understood.

Instances meeting like constellations, beautiful pictures, terrible pictures. Turning gears.

By the time the fragments numbered in the thousands, her heart was no longer soft. And by the time they numbered in the tens of thousands, feeling was a miraculous thing, a flower in a drought, and she understood love and fear only through the scenery they existed within.  
  


* * *

  
Evening casts its cloak over another Watanagashi. The stall lights bob in the darkness. The warmth of day dampens, but doesn’t leave the air.

She pays little attention when Keiichi and Mion slip away. Pays little to anything, these days.

 

Heavy robes, dark rooms. A fire in the mountains. Flesh under fingernails.

 

Sometimes, Hanyuu would still cry at what was coming.

 

A weighted sleep. She supposed even if she were granted dreams, the knife would cut through those, too. She felt it - cold in her stomach. Often the last thing she knew.

 

Still, the worlds differed. The ways in which they did - she couldn’t afford not to notice.

It was just that by this point she felt like a student falling asleep in a Maths class as a teacher somewhere droned on about equations she was sick of trying to decipher.

 

She sensed rather than thought, these days. She knew her friends. What would’ve been infinitesimal shifts to some made her feel seasick.

Hanyuu had commented on it, once. _Sometimes I’m surprised you still - Uhm..._

 

Have you heard of the form of torture where water is left to drip onto your forehead until you lose your mind?

Animals could tell when earthquakes were coming long before humans.  
  


* * *

  
Every world felt different. Like variations of a virus - this one gives you strange dreams, this one makes you feel warm all over, and this one makes you throw up until the back of your throat burns.

You could say her heart was colourblind.  
  


* * *

 

It only clicked into place, in a moment of clarity, as she saw them walking back. Her friends, smiling at one another. His arm in hers, a blush like the sun was setting under her cheeks.

 

_Happiness._

 

It’s Hanyuu - here, now, or perhaps from the past. Perhaps from another world. She didn’t feel déjà vu, after all - she lived it.

 

But, no. There were things Rika hadn’t seen before, even now. She could tell - they felt like winter air against her skin.  
  


* * *

 

She pays attention, then. Doesn’t think - sometimes she doesn’t want to any more. Mostly, Hanyuu will berate her. Sometimes, she’ll understand.

 

There is no malice in either expression. No tension.

When Keiichi wins something from a stall, turns too quickly to give it to Rena, she just smiles, shakes her head. Leans over to whisper something into his ear that leaves him turning red.

She doesn’t listen to the words any more - “Say, isn’t something weird going on, Rika?”

Most of them.

“What could you mean, Satoko?” Their voices are quiet in the festival air, her friend’s fingers in her own, breath warm on her cheek.

“They’re totally acting weird, don’t play dumb. Especially Mion-san - do you think she has a fever?”

“Next stall, next stall! We don’t have all night!” It’s Rena’s hands at their back.  
  


* * *

 

Of course, perhaps more importantly than what changes - there’s what stays the same.

 

When you’ve performed a ritual dance thousands of times, you can do it in your sleep. She uses every chance she can to survey the crowd, even as Hanyuu whispers the answer in her ear.

_No good, they’re not here._

 

Somewhere else in the night, a young nurse and a photographer from Tokyo are spending their last hours sharing ghost stories.  
  


* * *

 

Perhaps it would be wrong to say Rika didn’t feel any more.

 

She felt when a world was coming to a dead end, like oxygen leaving the air.

Once or twice, she thought she might’ve felt a miracle at the tips of her fingers, whatever Hanyuu told her.

Sometimes, she wondered if those worlds were mere dreams. Hanyuu hadn’t dreamt since she was human. _How do you tell a dream from reality, Rika?_

She didn’t know the answer to that.

 

She didn’t feel the fissures form across the surface of their reality. All she had to do was look into her friends’ eyes to see when it was too late.  
  


* * *

 

It takes seconds to tell Takano and Tomitake don’t number among the crowd watching her performance, so she looks for her friends. See’s Keiichi’s hand in Mion’s, now.  
  


* * *

 

It’s like colour theory. A sixth sense.

When the day comes, they’ll need all the right pieces. Nothing less.

 

What kind of a world will it be? She likes to think about it, staring up at the ceiling as Satoko snores beside her.

 

Some things were simple to understand.

Worlds where Houjou Teppei - Rika squeezes her eyes shut.

 

Others, more complicated. It wasn’t like it all made sense. What worked, what didn’t. But it further reassured her - out there, somewhere, was their world. Their imperfect, perfect world. She just had to find it.  
  


* * *

 

They chatter about the events of the day, Rena drags a cart of toys behind her, Satoko jumps through the pools of light the streetlamps form. They come to the road where they go their separate ways. Keiichi, Mion, Rena, back down to the village, Rika and Satoko to their little shack behind the temple.

 

_It’s okay._

 

Sometimes Rika has to wonder if Hanyuu and her don’t share more than their senses. It’s only after she says it that Rika feels it, in the pit of her stomach.

The prologue draws to an end. Tonight, it begins. Tonight, she’ll toss and turn in her sheets. Try to make sense of this prelude to disaster.

 

It had been a strange world. Little had stood out.

_Then, why?_

She understands the question, of course. Why not here? Why not now? So Hanyuu is humouring her tonight. Why not this time?  
  


* * *

 

One day, this will all end. It’s the truth. It has to be.

There are things Hanyuu asks her to explain, things she can’t.

 

Satoko skips through the tall grass and Hanyuu hovers between them as Rika watches her friends walk home.

Their voices fade into the night until indistinguishable from those of the cicadas. Their silhouettes melt into the darkness.  
  


* * *

 

Sometimes, they’d try to find the answer. Sometimes, they’d make a game of it.

What piece do you want, Hanyuu? _And you, Rika?_

 

Truth is stranger than fiction. When the end came, they’d probably have little choice.

Of course, that was fine. One day, the shimmering heat would break into true summer. The sun would dawn and dawn and dawn until Watanagashi became a distant memory. The season that only knew how to begin would end.

 

At that time, would she be happy? Would she be able to put the past to rest?  
  


* * *

 

“What’re you laughing about? You’re so mean, Rika! Fine, you make dinner, if you think it’s such a ridiculous suggestion!” Satoko huffs, throwing open the front door. She opens her mouth to call after her friend, but it only settles into a wry smile.  
  


* * *

 

It would be ludicrous to suggest she’d miss this.

Her fear came from considering whether she remembered how to wake up from nightmares. Whether her eyes still knew how to adjust to day.

 

Still, it could be confusing. At first, she'd recognised it as a kind of reverse-nostalgia. Snatches of a life to come - nestling in amongst the horror, there were moments like this.  
  


* * *

 

She turned to look over Hinamizawa one last time. The sun had been cast to the other side of the sky, was exploding like a heartbeat over the horizon, giving the very edges of the town the illusion of being on fire.

 

It might have been absurd to say there were still moments where she was happy. Or, more so, at peace. But, this was her life, too.

 

More than finding the lighthouses in the dark, Rika tried to understand things as they existed now. If nothing else, there was an aestheticism to it. One day she’d make it to the sea, so why not enjoy her time observing the tributaries?

 

She couldn’t comment on the machinations of fate. She could only honour the parts of themselves they’d all leave here, when they took the future in their hands.

Sometimes she felt like a god. _Hey._

 

Keiichi and Mion had held hands all the way into the sunset.  
  


* * *

 

She watches until the world has turned its face from the sun. Hanyuu’s voice is soft, weak as a gust of wind in the burning summer.

_So… Not this time?_

Not this time.

Hanyuu waits for a few heartbeats, the way someone might standing over a grave before laying flowers. Then -

_Are you ready now?_

Rika breathes in the evening one last time.

  
_Let’s go, Hanyuu._

**Author's Note:**

> i've been having Some Feelings about watanagashi-hen -_- it's been a while since i've looked at the answer arcs so i can't say whether it's really outlandish to imagine keiichi and mion ending up together but considering the confusing mess that watanagashi is and how useless they both are i guess i ended up thinking of it that way. i wrote this with that in mind - rika observing one such rare fragment, slightly melancholically, knowing both that it probably won't pan out this way in the end, and seeing how happy they are. (edit: i have now read the answer arcs and me of the past you are a fool)
> 
> anyway writing this was a nice little journey in self-discovery namely me realising the only canon that exists in my heart is one where keiichi, rena and mion end up happily together bye
> 
> (the title comes from a quote from macbeth - “sleep in spite of thunder”.)


End file.
